“I just want to be a ball coach.”

And with that proclamation, Creighton associate head coach Greg Grensing introduced himself to the Eastern community.

Grensing has been with Bluejay program for 11 years as an assistant under head coach Dana Altman. During that tenure, Creighton has been to the NCAA Tournament six of the past seven years and has become the first Missouri Valley Conference team in 98 years to have seven consecutive 20-or-more-win seasons.

The obvious question is the reason somebody would want to leave that winning environment.

“I told (Eastern director of athletics) Rich (McDuffie) that head coaching jobs are few in far between in areas you feel comfortable in,” Grensing said.

The career assistant that had been a protege under head coaches Lon Kruger (at Texas-Pan America 1985-86) and Dana Altman (Kansas State 1987-1994, Creighton 1995-present) said he would be interested in bringing the Creighton style to Charleston.

“I think what we attempted to do at Creighton better than anybody is establish an identity which includes a unique half-court offense and full court pressing defense,” Grensing said. “Quite frankly, certain kids are meant for us in Omaha and others wouldn’t be successful.”

Originally from the Midwest, Grensing described his recruiting philosophy in his territory as possibly a little different while at Creighton because of what they had to offer.

“Back in the (1994-96 seasons), high school kids weren’t dreaming of going to Creighton, and we had the task of changing that philosophy,” Grensing said. “This is why we excluded Chicago recruits instead of the Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Iowa.”

Grensing explained why his staff chose to not concentrate on the city of broad shoulders.

“We felt that market is highly saturated from the point of view that why would a kid early on choose Creighton over Illinois State and Bradley that are in our conference,” Grensing said. “However, an hour and half north there’s some diamonds that really were willing to fit our system.”

Grensing said he is reluctant to look at 2004 game film of the Panthers in hopes of developing his own impression of the players if hired.

“I want to start them on a clean slate and say to them what can you earn for me,” Grensing said. “I’m excited about the young talent that is on this roster and hopefully I can make them better.”

The last time Grensing was in Lantz Arena was the 1984-85 season as an assistant with Texas-Pan America, but he mentioned that the 5,000-seat building is an instant home-court advantage.

“Some may mention the arena first as a problem for recruiting, but I swear to God, if you get people in that thing, it’s going be a tough to win there,” Grensing said. “When we had the old Civic Center at Creighton, we never took a recruit in there, but kids saw the environment.”

Grensing said the rumors of Altman taking the Tennessee head job did not affect his interest in Eastern at all because he didn’t believe he was headed to the Volunteer bench.

“I don’t like to think that I know all and predict things, but I felt real confident that coach Altman is committed to being in Omaha,” Grensing said.

While Grensing was an associate head coach this season, Creighton men’s basketball recorded a 980 (0 for 1000) in the recently announced Academic Performance Report (APR), which measures graduation success.

“What I say to kids is please don’t come to Creighton if you don’t plan on graduating because we don’t expect anything less,” Grensing said.